Im I a mug?

Kimitatsu

Caz3121 wrote: »

but it is not always someone left holding the baby...my husbands ex went off with another man taking his 2 children, he handed over 50% of his wages for years, lived as a 38 year old man in his parents spare room to fund her lifestyle in a house with pool abroad....and it was never enough, when he got a 1 bedroom flat she said he should have got a bedsit as it would have been cheaper so he could give her more.

Now the money from benefits and maintenance is due to stop for one of the children so she is throwing him out. He is coming to us and it turns out the course he is going to do is not classed as advanced so we will get the CB and in theory maintenance from her (they will have one child each)

I would say the chances of her even considerring that she is responsible to pay anything is very remote even though she has spent years talking about how much it costs her to keep the children (with £21k in benefits and maintenance she has never needed to work more than the 16 hours required to get the most from the system)

That is part of my point though - at £21k she has more than the average wage in the UK coming in plus her own salary. Your OH should never have had to pay 50% of his wages to her, which is why I said that I can see it from both sides.

As a PWC I would to get a reasonable amount of maintenance from my ex, currently I get £2.50 a week per child (its a long story because he is on a salary of MUCH more than that) and I defy anyone even the most avid moneysavers to bring up a child on £5 a week plus any benefits they may get for that one child. On the other hand my now husband pays a massive amount of CM to his ex plus she gets all of the benefits and takes home more than £2000 a month. When I first met him he was doing just the same as your OH, had huge debt and she has been left very nicely off.

So I do see from both sides, PWC need a reasonable amount to live on and contribute but also the NRP should be able to move on with their lives rather than be held to ransome for the next 18 years (or even up to 20 with new legislation coming in).

Ultimately the people who really suffer are the children either through not enough money in the household, or by being poisoned against one parent or the other and having contact witheld.

I wish you luck in trying to claim maintenance, although I think you may have a fight on your hands by the sounds of things.

All any of us can really do is the best for our child with the resources we have, rather than PWC's witholding contact and NRP's deciding they will not fund the lifestyle of the PWC........which is what seems to be the nub of the issue on most cases!!

furgasm

Thank you guys for all your comments - they are most helpful

Regards

Furgasm

furgasm

Would a request to change the wording on my consent order require me to employ a solicitor?

daska

No, you can represent yourself, it's not difficult, but being in possession of the facts and an idea of what the courts deem reasonable is very useful. The strongest proponent of that on this forum is Speedster